"Most blessed of the patriarchs" : Thomas Jefferson and the empire of the imagination

by Annette Gordon-Reed

Other authorsPeter S. Onuf (Author.)

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Genres

Collection

Mary Ann Gwinn

Publication

New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016.

Description

Thomas Jefferson is still presented today as an enigmatic figure, despite being written about more than any other Founding Father. Lauded as the most articulate voice of American freedom, even as he held people in bondage, Jefferson is variably described as a hypocrite, an atheist and a simple-minded proponent of limited government. Now, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and leading Jefferson scholar team up to present an absorbing and revealing character study that finally clarifies the philosophy of Jefferson. The authors explore what they call the "empire" of Jefferson's imagination--his expansive state of mind born of the intellectual influences and life experiences that led him into public life as a modern avatar of the enlightenment, who often likened himself to an ancient figure--"the most blessed of the patriarchs".… (more)

Media reviews

Cairo Review

The book is not a trial of Jefferson. It is a voyage into his mind. Readers with a penchant for philosophy, appreciation of the complexity of human thinking, sympathy for failings and weaknesses, and admiration for cultural refinement will enjoy this journey. They will get an understanding of,

rather than a verdict on, one of the finest minds in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Show Less

— 1 more

New York Review of Books

any reader expecting a full account of Jefferson’s life should go elsewhere. But if the reader already knows the outlines of his life, then this collection of reflections will be richly rewarding. It is full of fascinating insights about Jefferson. ... It is divided into three parts. The first,

entitled “Patriarch,” deals with Jefferson’s home and plantation in Virginia. The second section, entitled “‘Traveller,’” focuses on Jefferson abroad and takes his political career up to the mid-1790s when he became the leader of the Republican Party in opposition to the Washington administration and to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. The third part, entitled “Enthusiast,” describes Jefferson’s love of music, thus returning to his youth and his marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton. The authors recount his retirement years at Monticello when he was besieged by visitors and explain his religious attitudes.

Show Less

User reviews

LibraryThing member DLMorrese

This biography focuses on Jefferson's personal life, his home, his family, and his attitudes about them. He was progressive in many ways, a man of the Enlightenment, but his beliefs about gender, race, and religion remained constrained by his times. The impression I'm left with from this book is

that Jefferson sincerely meant well and did his best.

Show Less

1 more

LibraryThing member sethwilpan

I’ll give it a three because the light it sheds on Jefferson’s character outweighs my dissatisfaction with it’s literary merit. The “Empire of the Imagination” of the subtitle seems to refer not only to the glorious republic that Jefferson imagined the new nation could become, but also to

the self-image he cultivated, which was often at odds with reality. He extolled the virtues of home life, wherein, he thought were cultivated the spirit of fellowship and civility and moral values that would be the bedrock of the national comity. He often wrote about the central place that home played in his life. Yet he only spent a handful of years actually living in Monticello, and most of that time was in what he considered to be an illicit relationship with a slave. On that biggest question, that of slavery, he recognized its evil, yet came to an accommodation with it, thinking that he could ameliorate it with kindness, and wishfully thinking that his countrymen would quickly come to appreciate its corrosive effect on them and, thus, disavow it. He was a sensitive poet, who may have been out of place in politics, and I love him for his poetry, for his love and care for humanity, which has inspired us, but which, I suspect partly because of the excessive optimism he brought to bear on the practical matters of state, we have fallen short of.

Show Less

Fewer